After the 1980 election Nancy Reagan's father, Dr. Loyal Davis, was in charge of finding the White House physician:

He asked me to take the job, and I said
"Well, what you want is a bright young internist, somebody who wants to make a name
for himself." He hit the ceiling and said, "That's exactly what we don't want." -- DanielRuge, MD2a

Charicles and Tiberius

Before antibiotics became available in the 1940s, people lived in fear of infection.
Infections could (and often did) kill a completely healthy person in a few days.

Taking a temperature is today a familiar step to determine whether an infection might be present.
But in ancient times thermometers were not available.
Instead, people checked for a fast pulse rate.

Near the end of his reign (first century A.D.), the Roman emperor Tiberius was old and ill.
To conceal his illness he continued his daily routine, which included various banquets.
Upon leaving the dining table at one banquet, a physician named Charicles kissed the emperor's hand in farewell.
Tiberius suspected a covert attempt to feel his pulse.

To give evidence of his health, Tiberius bade the physician to sit down again.
He continued the banquet "until very late" and at the end of the evening stood in the middle of the
banquet hall (with a bodyguard) giving a personal goodnight to each departing guest.
3a

George V has got to have a rib resection and drainage, the same as anybody else. -- Wilfred Trotter

Trotter was asked to consult after the King's pneumonia developed
into the rare but potentially lethal complication of empyema. Other physicians
had treated the empyema with
various less aggressive -- and less proper -- treatments, but Trotter
rightfully realized that biology is no respector of rank.

Abrams, Herbert L. "The President Has Been Shot": Confusion, Disability, and the 25th Amendment in the Aftermath of the Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992.0393030423Libraries 91-15846.